1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a PWM control circuit useful in battery-powered devices. More specifically, the invention is directed to a PWM control circuit having battery conservation features. The invention is further directed to a battery-powered light source incorporating such a PWM control circuit, where the battery may be a rechargeable battery.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known to adjust the output power of a battery providing power to a device, such as a spotlight, table lamp or other such source of light. Considering, for example, the context of lighting devices, one known circuit incorporates pulse width modulation (PWM) to automatically increase the duty cycle of the signal that provides power to the lamp as the voltage of the battery decreases, to thereby maintain a constant power supply and light intensity. It is also known to manually decrease the duty cycle to reduce the intensity of the light as the battery voltage decreases. Examples of such control circuits are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,525 to Mallory and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,040,660 to Schmidt et al., which are incorporated herein by reference. Note that, in the case of the former, the light intensity is maintained at the expense of battery conservation. It would be useful if there were a device that allowed for manually adjusting the light intensity of a battery operated lamp, and which automatically reduced the power drawn from the battery by the lamp as the voltage of the battery decreased in order to prolong battery life.